Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award

Lisa Flanagan

Equity Advisor
Vice Chair and Professor, Neurology

Lisa Flanagan is a Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Neurology at UCI. She holds joint appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Anatomy and Neurobiology. Her research combines cell biology and bioengineering to decipher neural stem cell fate potential and optimize cell transplantation to treat neurological conditions. Her overall goal is to better understand stem cell function during brain development and to maximize repair of the central nervous system after debilitating conditions such as stroke. Before joining UCI, Professor Flanagan completed her Ph.D. at University of California, San Diego, and post doctoral training at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. She received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, serves on the Editorial Board for Scientific Reports, is a fellow
of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, and has organized multiple international scientific conferences.
Professor Flanagan has served two terms (six years) as an equity advisor in the School of Medicine, launching a new Hiring Incentive Program in the school and working with Dean Michael Stamos to build greater leadership focusing on equity. She worked with the School’s Office of Belonging, Equity and Empowerment to spearhead a new initiative to highlight school faculty, staff, students and programs. As an equity advisor, she raised awareness of the UCI Faculty Recruitment Inclusive Excellence Supplement as a lever to enhance faculty recruitments and created a new support program for assistant professors during COVID-19. Additionally, she has initiated and implemented efforts to expand faculty outreach and diversity metrics for planning and programming.

Ilona Yim

Interim Chair and Professor, Psychological Science

Ilona Yim is Professor and Interim Chair in the Department of Psychological Science and has served for four years as equity advisor in the School of Social Ecology. Her research aims to better understand biopsychological mechanisms linking stress and health, in particular women’s and minority health. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Trier, Germany. At UCI, she co-established and oversees the U See I Write program to promote faculty scholarship and community. She currently works on growing this program into a cross-campus, UC-wide initiative, supported by grant funding from the Advancing Faculty Diversity Program at the University of California, Office of the President. She also co-leads a grant, supported by the same office, to support faculty retention and mentoring. This project has led to establishing a campus-wide Inclusive Excellence Professors council and mentoring program, creating visible and impactful leadership development and mentoring resources at UCI.

Nina Bandelj

Associate Vice Provost, Academic Personnel
Chancellor's Professor, Sociology

Nina Bandelj is Chancellor’s Professor, Department of Sociology, and Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development at UCI. Bandelj’s research on how social relations, culture, power, and emotions influence economic processes, including investment and debt, inequality, globalization, postsocialist transformations, and ideas about economy, has been published in many articles and six books, most recently, Money Talks: Explaning How Money Really Works. Bandelj is past Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, and the European University Institute. She is an honorary member of the Sociological Research Association, and a recipient of the UCI Distinguished Mid-Career Award for Service and the Dynamic Womxn Award for Academic Achievement. Bandelj serves as one of the editors of Socio-Economic Review, Treasurer of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, and Vice President of the American Sociological Association.

Aimee Edinger

Equity Advisor
Chancellor's Fellow
Professor, Developmental and Cell Biology

Aimee Edinger is a Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology and Chancellor’s Fellow in the UC Irvine School of Biological Sciences. She is the Associate Director of the UCI Cancer Research Institute and co-Director of the NCI T32 Training Grant that supports interdisciplinary cancer research training at UCI. Edinger lab research in leukemia, prostate, and breast cancer models has been funded by governmental agencies, private foundations, and intramural sources. Dr. Edinger is an inventor on seven patents and co-founded a start-up company, Siege Pharmaceuticals. Professor Edinger has taught several of UCI’s undergraduate and graduate core courses and is actively engaged in the development of an Honors curriculum focused on critical analysis of primary research data and intellectual risk-taking. Dr. Edinger’s efforts to support UCI’s teaching mission have been recognized by the 2021 De Gallow UCI Professor of the Year award, a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, and a Golden Apple teaching award from the School of Biological Sciences. Dr. Edinger has served as the Equity Advisor for the School since 2016.

2021 Recipient of the Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award - Dr. Zuzanna Siwy

Zuzanna Siwy is the inaugural recipient of the 2021 Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award. A professor of physics and astronomy in the School of Physical Sciences, she served two terms as an equity advisor for the school, from 2013 to 2015. Her nominators  – Professors Elizabeth Jarvo and Clare Yu – cited her tireless work during her 2013 term that contributed to the prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Professorship support in the school, as well as her organization of UCI-wide programming, including workshops that were part of the UCI ADVANCE Institute for Equity and Diversity that engaged students, faculty, and postdoctoral scholars.

Professor Siwy joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCI in 2005, after conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Florida, Gainsville.  She held several fellowships, including the Fellow of the Foundation for Polish Science, and at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Institute for Heavy Ions Research (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany and at the Alfred von Sloan Foundation. In 2009, Dr. Siwy was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers as well as the Bessel Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Her current research interests focus on using synthetic nanopores as templates for biomimetic channels as well as ionic diodes and ionic transistors. She holds a Ph.D. from the Silesian University of Technology, in Gliwice, Poland.

Congratulations, Professor Siwy, for your recognition and contributions to inclusive excellence!